


if there's a shadow in me, the dark is tidal wave inside of you

by derogatory



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood and Injury, Enemies to Lovers, Extremely Dubious Consent, Knifeplay, M/M, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Prison Sex, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Torture, sort of lol - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derogatory/pseuds/derogatory
Summary: No, Ferdinand hadn't wronged him then, standing in the moonlit frost and ignoring the presence in the shadows. The defilement had come later, standing up against Edelgard, hanging onto a childish rivalry they were years past. Hubert's true grievance was with Ferdinand's outdated sentimentality, like a pair of slacks you keep long after you've grown out of them.Hubert yanks Ferdinand's arms behind him like a doll, using the shift in positions for leverage as he fucks him.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 15
Kudos: 126





	if there's a shadow in me, the dark is tidal wave inside of you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meiwacool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meiwacool/gifts).



Hubert dreams he cuts off two fingers from his right hand. There was no real rationale behind the removal; at best, there had been a fleeting thought within the dream that the fingers were useless or bothering him in some way. Hubert amputates his index and pinky finger in two quick snips, like trimming the branches from a tree. But even in the dream, he realizes his mistake immediately, the sudden rush of air that leaves his lungs like a wind gusting through the suddenly-too-short shrubbery. Why did he do that? His life flips over. Everything seems so abruptly different after a snap decision, an impulsive dedication to remove parts of himself he thought were useless. 

It had been a stupid mistake, but then again, he had never really had a head for gardening. 

Hubert startles awake, examines his hand in the dark, relieved all its fingers are still there. He settles back to sleep, brushes the dream aside. He lives to serve Edelgard's dreams, so his own — particularly ones that seem more akin to nightmares — are not worth a second thought. Yet somehow, for the next morning and the following days and weeks afterward, the feeling persists.

Not necessarily the desire to remove body parts; no, in waking Hubert is smart enough to rationalize that the feeling that lingers is one of incompleteness, of a final and brutal mistake. Hubert is unfamiliar with making mistakes, as foreign as missing fingers on one hand. Not once has his life felt like a mistake. Collapsing ragged after trying to locate Edelgard during their childhood separation; that had been an ill-advised decision, but certainly not a mistake. Not being able to protect her from the horrors of experimentation — that had been a regret, but nothing Hubert had so much authority in that he could quantify it as a mistake. A mistake is a flutter in his chest, the sensation of bile rising in his throat that comes upon him in strange hours and quiet moments alone. Alone with the sense of mistakes, of incompleteness, of separating himself from something so crucial to his well being. The fingers he had lost in the dream had seemed useless, a bother. Easy to discard. And yet in the moments without them he was left feeling helpless and unfinished, with raw bleeding edges. 

Such a bizarre notion haunts him, unable to place its significance until Edelgard stages a fight against the newly strengthened church of Serios. And a once-teacher, now opponent, who was five years gone, suddenly returns. And at his side rides a holy knight with armor glittering like the sun.

The professor evades his grasp, but Hubert's not sure he'd ever really been aiming for him to start with. Instead, Hubert inexplicably brings the knight back alive. Edelgard stares through him as Hubert struggles to explain his logic: of obtaining the man as a bargaining chip, or perhaps just taking a piece off the board. The reality is that Hubert had saved him from death in an instant. It was a reactionary thought he'll pay for later, like trying to wrap his hands around the hilt of a blade with two missing fingers. Until now Hubert had prided himself on making every decision with careful consideration, but this one. He doesn't have an excuse. He saw Ferdinand and wanted him. 

Hubert's pulse quickens as Edelgard considers this. Asking his lady for anything leaves a rotten taste in his mouth. It was a foolish idea, she shouldn't give it a second thought. Forget he asked, he'll simply have the prisoner's throat slit before he wakes up, he'll do it now himself —

"Do as you like," Edelgard says, turning her horse away, trotting back into the reams of devoted soldiers. "But try and keep him from shouting too much."

The Empire's stronghold has any number of cells for prisoners to be deposited and forgotten. Hubert's not sure what he wants with this prisoner yet, but forgetting is far from his priorities at the moment.

"I can't see," Ferdinand says when he awakens, panic and stupidity darting through his words.

"You're blindfolded." A blindfold and a spell to secure it. The man's arms are bound behind his back, but Hubert would like to be doubly sure Ferdinand doesn't know the identity of his captors just yet.

"Oh." Infuriatingly simple. Not much has changed in these five long years. Hubert paces the length of the cell slowly, admiring its latest resident. Ferdinand seems to try to track his movements as much as he can in the dark. "Do I know you?"

"No." Hubert had considered how he wanted to approach this new venture. Ferdinand could know from the beginning he was in Edelgard's dungeon, that he was Hubert's prisoner. There would be something appealing in that, knowing Ferdinand was felled by his eternal rival who wouldn't deign to view him as an equal. And that now Ferdinand would be left to rot with only Hubert for company. 

That didn't sit right with him. It degraded Edelgard somewhat to factor her into this at all, as if Ferdinand even registered on her long list of enemies. That he had any worth as a prisoner under Edelgard's regime rather than one of the many corpses crushed by the wheel of her new world order. And another reason, deceptively small and treacherous: it would diminish Hubert's role to a mere prison guard. And what he planned to do with Ferdinand was so much sweeter and entirely separate from Edelgard's master plans. Ferdinand's capture was a gift to himself, and he wouldn't want to spoil anything by making the circumstances seem too familiar, too personal for the prisoner.

"No," Hubert says. It's not a complicated spell to adjust your voice, so he does. 

Ferdinand looks like he's doing some quick thinking. Hubert remembers his half-baked strategies from school. "Whatever your angle is," Ferdinand begins carefully, "my family has no ransom to pay."

"I know." Yes, he's heard all about the hardships the House of Aegir has fallen into. "You'll have to buy your freedom." Another lie. He's not sure what price Ferdinand could present that would allow for his release. A few fingers of his own maybe. An entire limb. Shearing off every lock of his hair. Nothing would be enough for what Hubert requires, a price even he can't be prepared to quantify.

For all his plotting, an unfortunate reality settles around this tiny cell, a reality where Hubert isn't entirely sure what to do with the man now that he has him. It had been no difficult feat to get Ferdinand here, but… Now what? Hubert regards him carefully. He supposes he could do just that: admire Ferdinand, caged and toothless. Like a shiny pawn you pluck off the board to examine or a stolen treasure to display on a high shelf. Or a bug pinned to a board.

Unsure of the purpose, Hubert reaches out to touch him. Ferdinand starts at the hand gripping his jaw. It has been so many weeks since he'd had that dream and Hubert still occasionally marvels to see each of his fingers still intact. He uses them to follow the strong lines of Ferdinand's face; even with such long elegant hair, there are parts of him that are so masculine. In youth he was gangly, more loud than noteworthy, but he's filled out that height and noise, settled into something more put together. Graceful and sturdy, like a slab of marble. Next to him, Hubert feels like elevated concrete.

Ferdinand wrenches his face away, his mouth pursed in a thin, angry line, a nerve in his jaw twitching. As lovely as it had become, his face was a living thing in Hubert's hands. Perfectly sculpted, throbbing with life underneath. He wants to slam a hammer into this fine stone and reduce it to dust, bare the life beneath it raw and open, like a wound left to fester in the open air. Ferdinand's grown into something so lovely, but sometimes people keep beautiful things to break them. This could be like that.

"Relax," Hubert says, can almost spot his sneer in its reflection on Ferdinand's armor. Ferdinand stays stock still, shoulders tossed back confidently beneath all his regalia. "Wearing all that… Aren't you uncomfortable?"

"No," Ferdinand says, falsely. Ridiculous. In rare instances back during his school days, Hubert had been forced to wear armor; he remembers how unyielding it was to sit in, let alone fight. There's no way Ferdinand thinks so little of himself that he cares more about propriety, about his perfect posture than the reality of his new doomed situation.

Or maybe he does.

Something about that armor coating him is so offensive, the way it still glitters in the dim light as it had on the battlefield. The way it shines even days after its last polish. Ferdinand had probably spent hours oiling it, head bowed in determination over this singular task of vanity. The white skin at the back of his neck as he leaned over each piece and worked it with a cloth, the absentminded determination that could make him vulnerable to attack. Blissfully ignorant of the person who had once stood in Ferdinand's dormitory doorway, silent and appraising, wishing to remain unseen and waiting to be noticed.

"Give me that," Hubert says and descends over him. This infantile thing Ferdinand drapes his body in. This all too brilliant representation of what remains of his nobility. The regality of a knight, the holy warrior at the hand of the church. The stooge of corruption cloaked in glamor and glitter. Hubert snakes his hand into the divot between the breastplate and shoulder piece and pulls.

"Stop-" Ferdinand shouts and Hubert wrenches his hand back harder. Another palm flat on his chest, he forces Ferdinand onto his back. It's easier to pull at him from that angle and sure enough, a shoulder piece tears off in his grip. Hubert casts it aside and goes for an arm brace, fingers digging into the leather straps, yanking with his full strength. It takes a couple of tugs, but it pulls free eventually. This type of armor is meant to protect against sharp points and blows, not so much pulling and tearing.

"You're — stop, you'll ruin it-"

"Good." As Hubert pulls, thinner fragments of metal break off and dig into his skin; Hubert hardly notices. Blood blooms and greases the plating like oil as Hubert claws at every piece he can wrap his fists around. Straps snap, plates bend. There's efficiency in magic but something enchanting about brute force. That he can get his hands dirty when he wants, can wring the life from Ferdinand piece by shiny piece.

Perhaps wisely, Ferdinand stops pleading his case, knows better than to attempt to reason with his captor. But he's still the foolish boy he's always been, all fight and bluster. Ferdinand lashes out with frantic kicks, twisting his abdomen under Hubert's hold before lurching forward and the top of this thick, dumb skull collides with Hubert's chin. Blinking back spots, Hubert swings, cracking Ferdinand across the mouth with his own gauntlet. Ferdinand's head snaps to the side with the force of the blow; his lower lip splits as blood splatters across the floor. Hubert flexes his grip around the glove as his prisoner reels, stunned. Hubert's not going to become a brawler anytime soon, but he supposes there's some fun in it, the dull thud of flesh on flesh. The ruination of Ferdinand's plum plush lips with an errant backhand. 

Ferdinand slumps back to the floor as Hubert kneels over his chest and resumes his task. It's hard work but rewarding to see the frame of Ferdinand's form laid bare, the shape of his arms newly filled out with muscle, a longer torso, firm thighs that weakly struggle beneath him. The room fills with the sounds of metal clanging to the floor and their heavy breathing. A downside to this sort of physical exertion is the exhaustion; Hubert doesn't like anything that makes his chest heave so much, doesn't like to feel pitched towards weariness. That's a state where people make mistakes, where the mind goes dim. When people make decisions they'll regret if they're left living long enough to remember them. Mistakes like how Hubert's eyes roam to the body revealed beneath the armor, to a spot of Ferdinand's exposed skin just beneath his shirt.

The metal plating would have protected him there, this spot where a spear could slide through his ribcage and send his entrails enveloping onto the ground. Non-magical attacks can be so conversely gory, such a mess. The smell alone. It's ultimately better and more time-efficient to burn someone to ash. Within a half of a season, the fields of the Empire will grow greener with that type of fertilizer. The recurrence of life from rot and death and decay. It could all start with a sharp point right at this spot.

Hubert splays his hand over that spot, pressing his bloody palm into the flesh there. It's not the soft and pliant belly of a child, but a firm set of abdominal muscles underneath. Ferdinand was a stringy sort of boy at school, but now, even under all that weighty armor, he's coated himself into another protective sheen, muscles twitching under his touch. Ragged breathing jumps to a more frenetic and worried pace: both Hubert's and the prisoner.

Hubert is momentarily transported back to Gronder Field, a lifetime ago. The Black Eagles thick with victory over the other houses; a childish success, no bloodshed. Clawless. His many infuriating loud classmates had busied themselves by patting one another on the back. Another classmate, more infuriating and loud than the rest, had lifted his arms over his head in celebration, and that strip of skin had revealed itself to someone watching.

Ferdinand shouts in alarm when Hubert's mouth touches him there. Hubert yanks up the rest of Ferdinand's shirt to explore the panes of his stomach more freely. Ferdinand grits his teeth and struggles as Hubert's mouth travels the length of those muscles, tongue darting along the finely sculpted lines. It was a fleeting whim, an idea. He saw that skin once, that body, and wondered what it would be like to taste it. And now it's so different, so schooled in muscle and determination. For what? The church? What a waste of something sculpted and fine. And on a body that fought for the church, would it taste like the sting of defeat, the tightness in your throat when you attach yourself to a losing cause? Hubert saw it then and wondered, and now he has tasted it: a thin sheen of sweat and fear, of the uncertainty of his captivity and the cruelty of his master.

Hubert stands and leaves, kicking the armor aside on his way out.

  


  


* * *

  


  


"Has it worked?" 

Hubert stares back at his lady, taken aback by the directness. She returns the look as impassive as a sheet of glass. "Removing that piece from the board," Edelgard continues, by way of explanation. She hates having to spell things out.

"Yes," Hubert hurries with his reply. "The church's forces-"

She turns her face away. "That's not what I meant." Hubert lives and dies in the moments between her words. The slightest of softening around the edges of her expression. "I meant has it worked for you? Do you feel…" 

"Yes." He's not sure what the question is, but he knows his feelings aren't worth Edelgard's consideration. "No, my feelings are irrelevant. It was just taking a piece off the board."

"You seemed adamant it had to be him."

"Did I?" Arguing with Edelgard makes his stomach turn, it feels like he's sinking into the mud, drowning with mouthfuls of wet dirt and sod. "It could have been anyone."

"Anyone," Edelgard echoes. She smooths a wrinkle in her gloves over and over again."So why not take someone more important instead?"

Hubert knows instantly who she means, the ghost that had haunted them for five years in memories only before sprinting into the center of a battlefield, church banner held high. A benevolent and generous teacher, a smile both warm and empty. 

"Well," Hubert begins and bitterness tinges the edges of his words, "Would you have been able to do what I have to your beloved professor?"

Edelgard affixes him with a narrow stare. "I've allowed you this. Do not make me regret my decision by talking about things you don't understand."

Hubert leaves the room with the sudden, intrusive thought of Edelgard's mouth on a captive Professor, and is blindingly mad.

He only returns to see the prisoner when he's prepared for the spectacle. Edelgard had been kind enough to express her concern; as a good servant, Hubert will regard her directions carefully. She allowed him Ferdinand. And he can keep Ferdinand as long as he proves enjoyable. He can shatter him to a thousand pieces and repair him with a healing spell. He can claw every last limb from Ferdinand's body and leave him an empty husk, a broken thing to be toyed with. Truthfully, Hubert doesn't want anything from Ferdinand, not really. But he was gone for so long and now he's here, in this cell, a piece off the chessboard Edelgard is playing with her life and her future. Herbert can spare the occasional time from his day to poke and prod at an irritating vestige of their past. Even touch him with Hubert's own body.

But just to be safe, this time he brings a knife.

"Where is my armor?" Ferdinand asks. He turns his head back and forth, unable to track Hubert's movements from the odd echoing of their stony enclosure.

"Discarded," Hubert replies. "At the bottom of a garbage heap somewhere." Ferdinand's anger hits him in the center of his chest like wine after a good meal. "That was all you had, wasn't it? Of your old life. Who you were."

"Armor doesn't make a noble."

Hubert scoffs, "Apparently neither do land and titles."

"You can't take away who I am," he replies, his chin pointed definitively upward. "There's more to me than armor-"

"I'll take from you as much as I like." Hubert grabs Ferdinand by a fistful of his hair, speaking over the cry of pain. "And Lady Edelgard will take the Church of Serios and the rest of her delusional followers down as well."

Ferdinand's face is slack with an expression that is almost hopeless and then, "I meant my horse."

"What?"

"I meant my horse got away, so you didn't…" He trails off. "Did you say 'Lady Edelgard?'"

Hubert's stomach plummets through the floor. "Enough talking," he snarls, bringing the point of his knife to flesh, cutting into Ferdinand everywhere his mouth had touched.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Another day, another visit. Perhaps today he would cut up his pretty face; Hubert had cut nearly everywhere else, watched long strings of blood trickle down Ferdinand's abdomen, pooling and blooming red under his clothes. The stains have stayed behind even though the wounds have been healed, and Ferdinand's clothing hangs off his shoulders, damp with sweat and blood.

Hubert weighs the pros and cons of lifting the blindness spell to allow Ferdinand to see his flesh rendered from bone, when Ferdinand interrupts his thoughts.

"Do we know each other?"

Hubert pauses. That would be a negative effect of removing the blindfold; that Ferdinand would see it was Hubert doing the torturing. He allows his disguised voice to remain disinterested, "Why do you think I know you?"

"Because," Ferdinand begins, thoughtfully, "If you were a stranger, why hide your face?"

Hubert's teeth gnash together in annoyance. "I don't want you identifying me."

Thoughtful, "So you don't plan to kill me."

"Oh no," Hubert replies, admiring the way his smile glints off the blade in his hands. "But perhaps you'll beg for me to kill you."

Somehow Ferdinand is just petty enough not to look convinced. Hubert will make him pay for that.

There's no armor to pry away this time, but underneath all the tears and straining, Ferdinand still wears such fine clothing, so much nicer than any other prisoner's. He always had been so impossible well-kept, so perfectly coiffed throughout their schooldays together. Even at the end of the Battle of the Eagle and Lion somehow Ferdinand had seemed untouched, not a single strand of hair out of place. In battle or doting on classmates, during his mid-morning ride with his back arched demurely, his face pointed to the sun: he always looked so tidy. Clothing of the classiest kinds of cotton and silks. He enjoyed looking like a noble, so it's no surprise that habit has continued into his adulthood, into his lack of lands and holding, and even into imprisonment. He may not be a noble any longer, but his clothing is too nice to be the threads of a commoner. Another thing to separate himself from the rest of the masses. 

But like any man, Ferdinand bleeds. Hubert learned as much from their last visit, had heard how he would gasp and cry with every slice of Hubert's blade licking into his body. Hubert wants to see that as quickly as possible, and without interference, as he dots Ferdinand's skin with new marks and bruises.

Ferdinand stiffens as the knife cuts through fabric. Hubert peels his clothing away like dead skin from a sunburn (recalling the slightest redness on Ferdinand's shoulders during the summer.) His clothing is easier to cut away than the armor and requires significantly less maneuvering of Ferdinand's body to accommodate it. Ferdinand lays still, careful of the blade, conscious of the damage done earlier. Healing spells remove the damage but never the memory, and even simpletons like him are wary to be hurt again.

Hubert lays the blade flat against a bare expanse of skin, admiring the contrast between its silver and the whiteness of Ferdinand's belly. He could plunge the knife in here and twirl it around Ferdinand's innards, let them roll out in swaths onto the floor. Heal him up and do it again, over and over into infinity. But the human body goes into shock so quickly and Hubert would hardly get to enjoy the pain and terror in his prisoner's eyes. Gutting Ferdinand would be over so quickly. And very messy — healing doesn't remove all the blood, and for all the battles they've experienced this far, Hubert's not entirely sure of the long-term repercussions of letting something sit in a pool of their inner liquids for too long, healed or not.

Then again, why change a system that's tried and true? He had felt some earlier enjoyment from cutting stitches into Ferdinand's skin, carving out marks not too deep to kill, but enough to let sincere agony blossom out over Ferdinand's regal features. Listen to him shout and moan, twist and whimper in pain. He was too proud to beg, but Hubert may just have needed to cut deeper, or for longer. Every man has a breaking point, and Hubert has a remarkably deep well of patience.

He lets the knife drift downward, dagging from gut to hip, along the ridge of his thigh. He turns the blade, presses the point of it into the innermost spot of Ferdinand's thigh. Ferdinand gasps as blood droplets course down the skin of his thigh, small, individual drops of red as Hubert presses the knife in just so. There are so many crucial veins in the body. Hubert could slice here and watch Ferdinand bleed out before he could even bother with a heal spell. He could move the knife to the center of his pelvis and cut away at other more sensitive spots. He's so exposed and vulnerable here. Through the knife Hubert can feel Ferdinand's thundering pulse begin to tick upwards, pounding hard with each drop of blood that's expelled.

He'd started cutting Ferdinand as a response to his mouth on the man. It would not be too strange for Hubert to return to that earlier assault? To simply lift the knife away and drop his head down. Hubert opens his mouth and his tongue leaves it, laps up the blood oozing from Ferdinand's thigh in a long, slow lick.

It tastes like blood. Blood is such a simple feature of the human body that he's familiar with the taste of it without partaking in it in any prior dramatic fashion. He has stood amidst enough battlefields for long enough that the scent has become familiar, comforting almost. A recognition that other men fell while he and Lady Edelgard remain standing. The scent of both victory and defeat, of success in lieu of the ultimate failure. And then here it is, on his tongue, his lips. Coursing out of Ferdinand in thin rivulets an inch from his mouth. The scent of his nakedness hangs in this liminal space between them, thick and heavy.

Hubert's usually better than this, more precise and thoughtful. And yet suddenly, like the sun peeking out beyond the horizon, like wondering the taste of Ferdinand's skin, Hubert thinks, _what does his cock taste like?_ and envelopes the head of Ferdinand's dick with his mouth.

"Oh-" Ferdinand jolts with the sensation, scrambling to remain sitting up, to not throw himself onto his back and let Hubert do salacious things to his body. Hubert pulls off as quickly as he tasted him — salty, foul-smelling. Nothing like the heavily perfumed ways Ferdinand had smelled carousing through the courtyards back at school. Back then, Hubert had never thought such base things about his body. Back then he had thought more about cutting Ferdinand open, about sewing his annoying mouth shut, about casting him over the edge of a particularly high precipice.

And now: Ferdinand's chest heaving, mouth agape, crumpling backward as soon as Hubert's mouth is off him. He'll hurt his wrists lying on his hands like that. Then again, what does a prisoner's comfort matter? Hubert had captured Ferdinand to hurt him — hadn't he? Why did he take Ferdinand after all? Wasn't it to remove a piece from the board — or had it been loneliness?

Hubert banishes that thought. He doesn't bother with selfish emotions like that; he exists for Edelgard's use alone. There will be nothing to desire in the realm of her new empire, no loneliness to feel. He can please Ferdinand with one hand and hurt him with another, passing the sensations between himself as effortlessly as turning over a belonging in his hands. Any belonging at all, such as an errant glove Ferdinand forgot at the dinner table, a saddle he had hung up that had been recently ridden in. Those momentary things, discarded items branded with Ferdinand's identity. And now that item in Hubert's possession was Ferdinand himself. And Hubert could treat him as carelessly as Ferdinand had treated him all those years ago; an imposition in his pursuit of Edelgard, a faceless shadow that had separated him from his "noble duties."

Ferdinand might hurt himself, laying on his bound hands like that. But surely Hubert can give him other things to focus on, he thinks, closing his fist around Ferdinand's cock.

Ferdinand lets out all the air in his chest in one long hiss. He twists his face to the side as a heavy pink blush travels from his partially obscured cheeks all the way down to his neck. Ferdinand's cock, which had been soft and unprepared for the moment it had been in Hubert's mouth, quickly hardens in his grip. He was always so annoyingly responsive, attuned to every scrap of attention tossed his way. What a shame Ferdinand had not outgrown such neediness, perhaps then he might have been able to hold off against this type of intimate torture.

"Has anyone touched you here?" Hubert asks. Ferdinand grits his teeth, face pointed away. Hubert has spent these past few days trying to strangle information about their enemy from Ferdinand, can he truly be so surprised that this sort of question would become a part of his torture? And really, it's not as if Hubert is interested in the answer to these questions. It's more humiliation than anything else. Forcing down bubbling jealousy, "Or maybe you touched yourself." He turns his wrists just so and Ferdinand's leg kicks out, helpless and reactionary. 

"Ah — yes," Ferdinand gasps, face scrunched up with shame. 

Hubert's mouth is overly full of saliva. "Who were you thinking of then?" An uptick of annoyance. "Edelgard?"

"No," Ferdinand cries, inexplicably shocked. Hubert makes him pay for that with a couple slow, agonizing strokes. It would be so easy to plunge a knife into him here, to split him in half, to rend this organ from his body and stuff it in his simpering, too loud mouth — "Mm... Professor…"

The memory of their benevolent teacher fills Hubert with dread. Of course it would be their teacher. Their soft, accommodating teacher with smooth, youthful skin and graceful movements. The same Professor who discarded Edelgard as easily as a handshake, who knowingly and mercilessly sided with the church of all people rather than his own students. Turned his back on the youths he'd pointed at bandits and nobles and commoners alike and forced to bare their teeth. Professor, who returned somehow worse than ever, who even in the thick of war still kneels mewling at the foot of the church. Their teacher reappeared in this future eager to pit students against one another, no longer children but as effortlessly impressionable as ever. Ferdinand would have never stood a chance again that open adoration, he was built for that sort of wicked piety, meek obedience.

It's for the best that Hubert rescued him from that, then. Better that Ferdinand dies in these cells, lost in obscurity, than on some noble battlefield for a cause that doesn't deserve the professor or him.

  


  


* * *

  


  


It's another day. Ferdinand sits up again when Hubert arrives, as if nothing happened, as if he hadn't spilled his essence at the stones below them, writhing and moaning in Hubert's grip. 

Hubert has a knife as always, could snip the cord of life he'd only teased before, could spill the man's blood and mix it with his semen. All because Ferdinand looks as effortlessly put together as always.

"You're back," Ferdinand announces. Hubert considers some misdirection; it's impossible to know how the knight can assess his presence versus one of the guards that bring him food and water. He'll need to adjust the volume of his footsteps. Or maybe it's his own eagerness to gut Ferdinand like a fish that's what gives him away, that palpable murderous intent.

"You sound pleased," Hubert replies. "Did you enjoy my last visit so much? You're eager for more." He lets the knife in his hand scrape audibly against the wall.

"No." Ferdinand tilts his head towards the noise. "I wanted to talk to you."

"What a shame. I'm not interested in speaking with you."

"What year were you?" Ferdinand asks, hurries through the rest of the question as Hubert rushes towards him, "at Garreg Mach."

"Quiet." The point of the blade digs into the soft flesh under Ferdinand's chin. Ferdinand holds a not-stare through his blindfold. He looks preposterous; nude but for the covering over his eyes. Acting as if he isn't in the most serene danger.

"Lie down," Hubert commands because as easy as it would be to shove him to the ground, it's more fun to watch the prisoner struggle. Ferdinand slowly eases down on his back; he's familiar with this position from their last visit. Hubert remembers how he had come after ages of fighting, after weakly holding back moans and sobs. How rewarding it had been to watch Ferdinand spill his seed over Hubert's hand, to keep coming even when he took his hand away. Watching his cock gurgle and spittle its remaining juices before collapsing lipid against his thigh. Ferdinand gasping and groaning, head pitched back against the floors. Hubert had left him there, in that icy silence of defilement. Yes, Ferdinand would likely be prepared for such sublime humiliation again, but today Hubert somehow has less of the patience he had had that previous evening, and new torments to try. 

"Roll over," He commands. Ferdinand grunts at the effort, rolling onto his stomach, bound hands just behind the small of his back. Below them, lifted in the air like a peach, his bare ass. Hubert runs a hand down the curve of it, pressing his gloved fingers into the soft muscle there. He has to wear gloves this time; it seemed like his hands had smelt like the boy's seed for hours. Hubert had been momentarily reminded of an urge to chop off his own fingers if just to escape from the scent of Ferdinand's arousal. Gloves this time, and he'll burn the evidence afterward.

"What-" Ferdinand struggles futilely at the position, as Hubert places a knee between his legs and forces them farther apart. A few brusque motions and Ferdinand is lifted onto his knees, his face shoved against the stones of the floor. The muscles of Ferdinand's ass clench with every prodding touch, his breath quickening as Hubert's thumb traces the puckered muscle at its center. Hubert admires his handiwork, unbuttoning his pants. Ferdinand grunts and shifts, trying to squirm away, but Hubert holds him firmly in place by one hand. The other hand takes himself in his grip, stroking his own cock in slow, leisurely motions.

He could ask if Ferdinand had allowed himself this kind of contact in the past. Touched himself here or accepted it from others. But he's not entirely sure he wants to know the answer. There's nothing distasteful in his own past, his own proclivities. And he wouldn't hold Ferdinand to some sort of shameful standard, enemy or not. And in truth, it's not as if Hubert has any interest in how many partners Ferdinand has taken, the men and women he's laid with. After all, those were events from their past, these five years they've spent separated. The only thing that should matter to Ferdinand is their current moments, the delightful ways Hubert can choose for them to spend their time together.

At least, until he slits Ferdinand's throat.

Until then, Hubert presses his thumb into the muscle there, reeling in the way a shudder laces down Ferdinand's spine. As he pushes in further, Ferdinand's hips shake at the slow intrusion. Hubert leans forward and spits against his hole. Ferdinand yelps.

"Much better," Hubert says, rubbing the slickness into the restrained muscle, watching it loosen slowly under his ministrations. His thumb disappears to the knuckle and he pulls to the side, holding the other's man's asshole open, a gash at the base of his spine, a shivering hole to be filled.

Hubert palms his dick eagerly, lining it up with Ferdinand's entrance. Ferdinand's breath comes in short and choppy gasps, his hands flexing against their restraints, shoulders tight. Hubert watches those muscles, the ones there and further down Ferdinand's back ripple as Hubert pushes his cock inside, past the unhuman resistance barricading Ferdinand from him. Ferdinand's shout is mostly absorbed by the floor beneath him, voice coated in a different pain than all the times Hubert struck him, cut him. These movements are a different sort of attack, using his body to violate Ferdinand's, to take something so personal and precious and steal it away. All done violently and carelessly, and as a stranger no less. Hubert holds back his sounds of pleasure — no need for Ferdinand to know how delightfully tight he is, how his body desperately clings to Hubert as he pulls back and pushes forward again, with renewed fervor, driving deeper into his ass.

It's so tight, it's so good. He doesn't regret slicing into this pale perfect skin, but there's something so much better in watching it stretch around his cock, watching every inch of himself vanish as it sinks inside Ferdinand, plunging his insides, wrenching pained cries from his prisoner. 

Sweat pools at his temples; he's working himself to exhaustion by fucking him. Normally that's more effort than Ferdinand is worth, but it's intoxicating to sink down to the hilt. To listen to Ferdinand's cries hiccup and tremble, pain sliding away to weak, pleased whimpers.

Surely it must feel good for Ferdinand too. Even in such abject circumstances, the man had been able to come before. How horrifying, that it hadn't taken long at all for the pump of Hubert's hips to wrangle pain into pleasure, to turn Ferdinand's desires against himself. 

Ferdinand buries his face out of sight, curled into himself, using his surroundings to dampen the sweet noises spilling from that overly full mouth of his. Depriving Hubert of his reward for such debasement, from such infernal exercise.

"Speak up," Hubert murmurs, tracing his hand along the length of his spine. Ferdinand shakes and goes quieter. Insolent. "You were always so loud." When Ferdinand refuses to yield, to give him what he's owed, Hubert wraps his hair around his fist and yanks. Ferdinand's head wrenches back, face exposed, wet tears rolling down from beneath the blindfold. Hubert is momentarily euphoric with it: the misery and ecstasy of that expression, the sobs shuddering through his body, sensations reverberating in his own dick, buried deep within Ferdinand.

And more terrible still, the sight of Ferdinand's cock, hard and pulsing. 

"You love this," Hubert says, delighting in the plaintive shake of Ferdinand's head, the hot tears spilling onto the stones beneath them. How long until he came as well, until Hubert used him fully and left Ferdinand sniffling in a pile of his filth. "Yes, you do," he continues, pushing as deep inside as he can manage, tugging on his hair to twist Ferdinand into more pleasing positions, to force his hips to arch in a way that sends sparks into the base of his spine. Ferdinand gasps, raw and pathetic, like a man skewered. Yes, right there, so deep and brutal, a terrible spot for Hubert to pound away at until Ferdinand sobs, heaves, and comes, like a braying animal. He's nothing more than a disgusting beast in heat for Hubert to butcher, to soak up those wretched noises as he collapses forward, shaken and spent.

Hubert lives in this moment, the awful acquiescence, the sublime humiliation of making Ferdinand come against his will. In the way his body had tightened around Hubert, responding to every intrusion. His soft cock springing back and forth as Hubert works his pace, works his body with the sleeve of Ferdinand's. So tight, so wonderful, so much better than intimacy could ever be. So worth every moment he spent pining, he spent tormenting himself and the prisoner, so perfect and brilliant and pathetic —

Ferdinand lifts his head, casts a furious low look cast over his shoulder. Inexplicably defiant, "Aren't you done?"

Hubert comes instantly. He'd been working himself up for ages, barely on the cusp of wonder, or allowing himself to release and be freed of such aimless desires. So surely it had been the sad state of Ferdinand that worked him to that conclusion. Only to have such determination, such a refusal to relent look at him head-on and allow him such a climax.

Hubert pulls free of Ferdinand, pushing the man full to the ground. Ferdinand stays there, breathing slowed, body trembling. Hubert had emptied himself inside; that stuffed-full ass seems to gurgle as he leaks his seed over the back of his thighs. It's so exquisitely lewd.

He's not sure if the healing spell repairs any sort of lost dignity. But surely a few more times of Hubert prying him open, of stabbing into such soft sensitive parts, surely then the insolence will be sapped from his prisoner. No more furious looks, no more snide remarks. Just howling cries and huffing breaths. Hubert could get quite used to this.

  


  


* * *

  


  


Another day, another instance of the prisoner at attention and waiting for him. Hubert quashes something that awakens inside him when Ferdinand turns his half-obscured expression to the door, almost knowingly. He feels a certain way about it, but Hubert's not interested in examining it currently.

"I suppose you have more questions," Hubert says, allows the man an additional moment to speak his peace before the torture. He supposes Ferdinand has earned it somehow, being such a delightful toy over the past few days.

"Did I wrong you somehow?" Ferdinand asks, "back at school."

"No," Hubert responds instantly, because to wrong someone you would have to consider them at all. You would have to regard your past interactions with that person as significant. To hold any sort of fondness or dislike for the other person in your heart. Hubert had dismissed those things long ago; they would not be effective in accomplishing Edelgard's ambitions. They were fleeting fancies that interfered with his true purpose to serve as her right hand. Not even as her hand, as a tool, one that has no mind of its own. 

To have been wronged would mean Hubert still recalls that cold night, too cold for early spring. Or maybe it had just felt colder standing in the shadows. Staring at the back of Ferdinand's head and wishing the little lord could read minds, that he could take the hand Hubert wasn't sure how to offer. Of course Hubert would never debase himself to beg, and as an instrument in his lady's hands, surely he couldn't ask for anything of his own, but had hoped… 

In some small, disturbed part of him that was still human had hoped, watching Ferdinand tool around the stables, blissfully unaware of the precipice before him. Hubert knew even his own father wouldn't make it out of the conflict unscathed; almost all their fathers stood in the way of the new world order. They wouldn't be spared, least of all House Aegir. From there Ferdinand's family would be discarded and his precious nobility reduced to dust.

Hubert didn't give any consideration for those trampled in Edelgard's wake, but on a cold spring night, in the midst of a plan that didn't include a person like Ferdinand, Hubert had wondered; would it destroy him? 

At any moment Hubert could have reached out and caught his sleeve. Confided in him, to have taken a scrap of attention, of wanting and longing for himself. To protect something so helpless and pure, to shield it from the horrors of what was to come.

No, Ferdinand hadn't wronged him then, standing in the moonlit frost and ignoring the presence in the shadows. The defilement had come later, standing up against Edelgard, hanging onto a childish rivalry they were years past. Hubert's true grievance was with Ferdinand's outdated sentimentality, like a pair of slacks you keep long after you've grown out of them. 

Now in the present, Ferdinand without his fine clothes, without that self-imposed distance. Instead of impossibly close, bound together in violent collusion. Hubert yanks Ferdinand's arms behind him like a doll, using the shift in positions for leverage as he fucks him. Ferdinand gamely holding back moans, his cock bouncing between his legs. Hubert allows himself a vicious smile, reaching out to squeeze Ferdinand's balls until he screams. 

No, Ferdinand had not wronged him back in Garreg Mach. There were no past sins to atone for. Rather it was Ferdinand's current wrongness, the inability to change with the changing times that deserves such a divine punishment. And after all, Ferdinand had sided with the church, hadn't he? Surely he could appreciate a little divinity.

  


  


* * *

  


  


"That prisoner," Edelgard begins, always thoughtful and deliberate. "You should stay away for a few days."

Hubert is unsure how his lady could know how much time he'd spent with Ferdinand. Certainly Hubert had not told her. It didn't seem to be information worth reaching his lady's ears. After all, Edelgard is the emperor of this new order, she has more important things to hear about how many times it took before Ferdinand came dry. How often he sobbed until he was hoarse, how he insisted on struggling until the very end when his body blissfully took the reins and allowed him to come. And that each time; such beautiful, excellent defiance, such strength of will that Hubert could witness before he came as well, in and around all parts of Ferdinand.

No, surely that was not a conversation he had any interest in having with Edelgard. His skin itches with hot fury at the idea that she could possibly know. What guard would have told her? How many soldiers would Hubert need to kill to stop such a leak?

"If you wish it," Hubert replies when he is certain his voice will stay even. He doesn't mind the order. It would give Ferdinand a chance to miss him.

He had acquiesced, but still his lady is not satisfied. She stares into his face for an answer Hubert's not sure he can give.

Edelgard lingers in that space for longer than Hubert appreciates. He worries Ferdinand's defiance has trickled into his own expressions. How he wants to see it again, hold that broken face in his hands and drink up that anger, the spit in his mouth dripping to the floor with every strained cry.

Hubert breaks his gaze with Edelgard. It's too inappropriate to think about such things faced with his lady. She could see into his soul, surely she would know such diabolical truths about Hubert deep in his core.

"Whatever you're doing with him," Edelgard begins, a low threat that burns at the back of his throat.

"Do you want to know?" Hubert asks, colorlessly. Sure that she must be able to tell, but thick with shame at the idea of breathing words to it. To give Edelgard some ownership over it.

Edelgard's face splits into a dangerous smile. "Do you think you could shock me?" she asks, continues while Hubert is laid flat by her loveliness. "I let you keep a pet because I thought it would help sustain you. Do not lose yourself to it."

  


  


* * *

  


  


Hubert doesn't allow Ferdinand any questions this time. That was what Lady Edelgard had meant, surely. That he needed to be careful with the prisoner. Needed to avoid giving himself away. For Ferdinand to know such dangerous things about himself, about a servant of Lady Edelgard; that would be an unimaginable misuse of his lady's trust. Better that he adheres to his initial role to keep his identity a secret, avoid Ferdinand knowing too much about his lady's plans.

And surely she hadn't meant it that Hubert needed to avoid the prisoner entirely. A brief respite was all Hubert needed to regain his composure. After all, he's certain he could go weeks without seeing Ferdinand if he so chose. Days, probably. Hours, certainly.

It's not that he worries Ferdinand is getting closer to the truth of Hubert's identity (and really, would it matter if he did?) It's only that Hubert had other business to attend to and Edelgard wouldn't want his extracurriculars to get in their way. Once work was completed, he could resume his hobbies, such as shoving his cock past Ferdinand's soft, plush lips.

For all his posturing, he takes cock well. Ferdinand had always been a quick study when he committed himself. And even with some resistance, he's no match for Hubert's steady grip, yanking his head back and coaxing his dick down the sleeve of his throat. Ferdinand's Adam's apple bobs as his throat convulses around the intrusion, a rippling mess of muscles that squeeze him. Hubert fits so nicely in that spot, forcing Ferdinand's head back to accommodate each awful thrust downward. Even with such service, Ferdinand glares — as much as one can through a blindfold. It's apparent in the tautness of the muscles around his mouth, even if it is comically gaping. Hubert holds that miserable look, watching it head-on as Ferdinand occasionally tugs and groans, desperate to get away but too weak to stop him. 

Ferdinand has become a soft body for Hubert to unleash his desires onto. One for Hubert to visit when the intricacies of wartime become too complicated. Down here it is simple: Hubert owns Ferdinand, displays it on all parts of Ferdinand's naked body. From the bruises he allows the man to retain — a reminder of what comes from resisting him — to the come drying at the corner of Ferdinand's mouth as Hubert pulls his cock free, steps back.

Ferdinand pitches forward, coughing, head bowed. Hair that was once held in place spills out from under the blindfold at a disturbing angle; a tangled mess from how Hubert dug his fingers into Ferdinand's scalp as he pleasured himself. Without much thought behind it, Hubert reaches out, tucks the hair back into place. Hubert finds himself stroking his hand through the rest of the man's hair. He let it get so long in their absence. Besides the glittering armor, it had been the first thing he'd noticed on their reunion. Working tangles out between his fingers, Hubert finds himself thinking of prim ladies and their decorum, their instructions to brush their hair at least a hundred times to keep it shiny. Had Ferdinand built that type of behavior into his habits? Would his hair lose its fine luster and shine without someone there to groom him daily? Was he suddenly just like the horses that occupied so much of his time at school: a caged animal, locked away in a cell, awaiting Hubert's arrival to pet him, to stroke this long mane of his? To rub him on the spots that were pleasing to himself and others.

Hubert is struck with a wild idea, pushing Ferdinand from his knees onto his back. Ferdinand emits a small, frustrated noise.

"You didn't think you were done, did you?" Hubert asks and relishes in the way Ferdinand stiffens as he descends on him. Ferdinand is used to it by now, that rough treatment, the insistent press of Hubert's organ into his deepest, most intimate areas. But no, this time around he has another idea as he strokes Ferdinand's cock. 

He's already half hard just from being mouth-fucked; one of the many reasons Hubert never takes all those fussy noises and resistances too seriously. Ferdinand loves to be useful, derives a sick pleasure from being used. And as enjoyable as it is to see his furious reactions, the sincere indignity written over each of Ferdinand's flawless features, it's even more enjoyable for Hubert to know Ferdinand comes each time, spills himself fitfully at their feet. A prisoner who loves to be tortured so terribly. Ferdinand ought to be ashamed. Dragged as low as possible and then cock thirsty too. What a disgrace.

Hubert positions himself with precision over Ferdinand's hips. He hasn't tried something like this — not with the prisoner, not with anyone but himself on slow, lonely evenings. Still, no amount of preparation can ready him for the sensation of Ferdinand's massive cock plunging into him, aching slow as Hubert lowers himself with a calculated slowness.

"Oh," Ferdinand's head falls to the side, expression conflicted. 

Hubert steadies himself and works to catch his breath. Every drop of oxygen is knocked out of him with every terrible inch of Ferdinand that pushes inside. He's experienced the joyous sensation of Ferdinand's ass graciously taking him in — is it possible it feels just as good as when Ferdinand fucks into him?.

Hubert forces that thought to the corner of his brain. He is not doing this for Ferdinand 's pleasure. None of this is for his benefit. Any enjoyment the prisoner derives is inconsequential. Hubert felt Ferdinand's hair, imagined him as some lowly beast of burden, and now he will ride him as such. That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter how Ferdinand's moans grow louder and more salacious once he's fully sheathed inside Hubert. Doesn't matter how his hips rock upward, striking a spot inside Hubert that sends pleasure lacing up his spine.

"Oh," Hubert confirms, hands clenched at Ferdinand's shoulders, bracing himself or holding Ferdinand in place, he's not sure.

As good as it had felt pushing inside of Ferdinand, that sensation is multiplied by the reverse. Ferdinand's powerful thighs tremble as they arch upwards, filling Hubert more fully than anything else ever has. Hubert rolls his body into the sensation, groaning with the unearthly friction building between them. He's barely able to lift himself onto his knees before dropping down again, staggering into an arrhythmic routine. He was never one for dancing, for elegance, but certainly there are no complaints from the prisoner. Ferdinand's face remains pointed away, huffing out staggered, satiated breathing against the ground. Hubert watches Ferdinand there, transfixed. Yes, some of what they did pleased Ferdinand, he's come countless times now. But there's something entirely different in watching the man be stimulated by the convulsing insides of his enemy, moaning in time with the small noises Hubert allows himself.

Hubert is thrown momentarily off balance as Ferdinand collapses back into the stones, tension draining from his body. Hubert lifts himself on his knees and feels it; hot come oozing from his ass, dripping down his bare thighs in messy globs. He's rocked with the force of it; Ferdinand coming deep inside, cock pulsing and coursing within him, coating his insides so thoroughly. Doing the same to Ferdinand has always seemed like the ultimate degradation. 

But now, when Hubert is on the receiving end… somehow it seems so incredibly blissful, so wonderful to imagine Ferdinand locked within him and releasing himself. Hubert's grip clenches around Ferdinand's hip, hard enough to leave five fingerprint bruises as he lets that sensation carry him to completion, erupting over Ferdinand's bare stomach. Ferdinand gasps and murmurs as Hubert's ass clenches with the strength of his orgasm. He's sure Ferdinand's dick grows harder again buried inside of him. How easy it would be for them to fall into a sweet little pattern, spurring the other on with such awful ecstasy.

Hubert struggles to catch his breath, aware he has to get up and leave. This is normally the part where he extracts himself and departs, lets Ferdinand shudder and sigh alone. But it's hard to move when he's so warm tucked inside of Hubert. And how appealing it would be to curl against Ferdinand's side, to brush his hand through his hair. To have his arms around him and be content and quiet and together. To gaze into Ferdinand's eyes in such a glorious afterglow.

It's that unwelcome thought and Ferdinand's satisfied half-smile that shocks Hubert back to reality. The reality that this man is not some lover, but his prisoner, one Hubert meant to breed like some mare whore, who's he holding here to torment him. Not to be — what? Some perverse company? Some forsaken star crossed lover. No, that's not what Hubert meant at all capturing him, not at all what he wants, surely not.

Hubert rears back and hits that perfect face hard enough to fracture bone.

  


  


* * *

  


  


As always, he's sitting up when Hubert arrives. It must be painful sitting in such a position at this point. Or maybe the healing spells at the end of each session take care of such things.

Ferdinand stares back at him, face empty except for the bruise shining wild at Hubert through the edge of his blindfold. He hadn't remembered to heal Ferdinand at the end of their last session — he does so now, the errant spell causing the purple fade into soft milky white skin.

"Thank you," Ferdinand says, too careless to be honest. Hubert regards that face carefully. Before there had been such bravery and newly crumbled restraint. That and his low anger at being used so terribly. Those were more familiar than this face of Ferdinand's, one of a simple canvass, an empty silk screen where defiance should be.

It is quite suspicious.

"Don't you look attentive," Hubert says at last, remaining at the door. He has to be careful with a changing toy, one that may learn and scheme, one that might take advantage of the time Hubert's spent with him. One that looks so entirely fuckable when he crawls on all fours to Hubert's feet.

Ferdinand unlaces Hubert's pants with brusque efficiency. His tongue rests heated in his mouth, a heavy object that's soon exposed, swiping hot and thick at the exposed head of Hubert's cock. Hubert groans, leaning back against the wall, hand carding into Ferdinand's long hair. He's had a bath at some point, a cold bucket of water splashed over him. Surely no fancy soaps and powders. And yet his hair is so soft again, so easy for Hubert to run his fingers through, to grab onto and thrust forward, cock tapping the back of Ferdinand's throat. Where he used to gag has been trained so wonderfully, where Ferdinand barely makes a noise as his throat chokes around Hubert's erect dick. He's nearly weak-kneed with such a development. With this sort of treatment, it's hard not to consider how well he's been trained to deliver this on command. That Ferdinand's true purpose isn't on a battlefield, but kneeling between a man's legs, cock puncturing into his throat.

His mouth is so accommodating, the lines of his body so appealing as he writhes on the floor, spurred on by the sounds escaping Hubert's mouth. There's no need to play coy; Ferdinand always thrived on positive reinforcement. And if he would just keep as he was, bobbing his head, palms braced against Hubert's thighs. He's very talented. He took such lessons remarkably well. What a hidden talent Hubert graciously unlocked for him. One he could enjoy for years to come.

For now he's content to hold Ferdinand firmly in place with a hand at the back of his head as Hubert empties down his throat. To enjoy the minute stiffening of his shoulders, the gargle in his voice as he's released. He's smart enough not to spit, not to turn away completely. Ferdinand gazes at him with covered eyes and bruised pink lips, come dotting the corners of his mouth like remnants of a good meal. In that delicate moment, Ferdinand reaches for him, coaxing Hubert to the floor. Ferdinand splays on his back like a spoiled cat, like an eager toy. He strokes his cock like he knows how he must appear: vulnerable and needy, gasping for air as Hubert shucks off the rest of his clothing and descends upon him. Lining himself up, enjoying the relish of emotion when he sinks onto Ferdinand's hungry cock. 

"If this is-" Hubert licks his lips. "-an escape attempt, know that won't — Ah."

Ferdinand is silent except for some weak, gasping noises. Bubbles of pleasure as Hubert allows him to slide further into his inner recesses. As good as Ferdinand had been at sucking cock, his own weapon is satisfactory enough that it only takes a bounce or two before Hubert's dick awakens again. Ferdinand's hips move in leisurely circles, toying with his insides, working their way through a tight ring of muscle to arch farther and farther inside. Hubert is never one to compare, but truthfully Ferdinand is better built for this sort of activity. He has more stamina than Hubert to be sure, has always been better suited for long stretches of physical exertion. Stronger thighs to push upward with endless abandon, to puncture deep into Hubert until he sees flickering lights behind his eyes. Ferdinand rests his hands along Hubert's waist — had he untied Ferdinand at some point? Or did the ropes wear thin? Did he provide another guard favors to have them removed? None of that matters in that instant that Ferdinand squeezes his hips, holds him in place to drill upward until Hubert is sure he'll choke on it, that beast of a member.

Someone is moaning loud, but Ferdinand's mouth is closed, face tight with concentration. _Ah,_ Hubert thinks, _it must be me._ His voice is deafening loud in his ears as he pants and groans, watching Ferdinand watch him. Like with each swing of his hips he's learning, listening —

Listening.

Hubert snaps his mouth shut. How long has it been since he dropped the disguise spell around his voice? Seconds? Minutes? Days even.

"You-"

"Hubert," Ferdinand growls, fucking into him roughly. That brutality that attacks him is nothing compared to the earlier edge to Ferdinand's voice, the hints of anger and frustration to have discovered the true identity of his captor. In normal circumstances, Hubert would allow himself to enjoy such hurt, but it's hard to focus on with Ferdinand skewering his insides. "It's you, isn't it?"

Hubert bites hard on the inside of his mouth, refusing to make another sound. 

"I don't recall how I wronged you," he continues. Hubert would be happy to explain if he didn't have the breath knocked out of him with every thrust. "But allow me to make amends."

Ferdinand pulls himself into a sitting position abruptly, dragging Hubert along with him. He's held, helplessly so, in the pit of Ferdinand's lap, his cock buried so deep Hubert is nauseous with its fullness. Or maybe it's the revelation that turns his stomach, the dread and panic that Ferdinand knows it's him, discovered the truth and still uses that ramrod organ to press pleasure into the deepest recesses of Hubert's own body.

"I," he says, stops himself. What would there be to say? Why should he have to explain himself? He was the victor and Ferdinand was the loser. All these times he took advantage of Ferdinand's body; it was the winner's spoils. There wasn't anything personal about it, he had no real grudge.

But perhaps Hubert had. That he had felt betrayed by Ferdinand's presence on the battlefield, by Ferdinand's ability to take cock from some nobody jailer. That Ferdinand would align with the church, that he would allow himself to show such blissful, disgraced expressions to just anyone. Any one of those things would be worth the grudge. And yet now, somehow, upon the revelation that it had been Hubert all along… That Ferdinand would use that moment to do something like this, to hold Hubert so tightly and wrench jolts of ecstasy from within.

"Stop," Hubert gasps, hands prying at his captor. "We — I…" He doesn't have any rationale behind his refusals. He had no rationale behind why he wanted Ferdinand or why he would treat him so terribly. He's so unused to wanting things, to having something of his own. How was it possible Ferdinand could uncover this part of him, reach the depths of him?

Hubert buries his face into the space between Ferdinand's neck and shoulder, groans as he comes between them. Every inch of him will smell of Ferdinand. How will he be able to do anything else with the scent of this man hanging over him, the stench of his misdeeds? He'll have to get rid of this prisoner. He'll have to stop visiting all together or surely Edelgard will finally discover what a truly pathetic animal Hubert has become from such wanting.

Ferdinand's labored breathing slows as does his pace. In Ferdinand's satisfied arms, Hubert can tell he's shaking. He's not sure what compels his own body to react in such a way; anger or dread.

"Release me," he orders.

"Never." At Ferdinand's words, Hubert feels a tightness growing in his chest. How painful it is that such words strike him at his most vulnerable. And the sudden realization that they are so close, so intimate, and yet he hadn't seen Ferdinand's face in so long. 

Hubert lifts the spell on the blindfold, pulls the bindings free.

It had been too difficult to see Ferdinand's eyes across the battlefield. Even if he had, Hubert only could trust himself a glance between fights, seeing the way Ferdinand's expression darkens when faced with an enemy. 

"You seem satisfied," Hubert says, hating the breathless, anxious quality of his voice. 

"I'm happy to finally see you," Ferdinand replies easily as if this had all been so simple, as if Ferdinand didn't have any doubts about such awful roles they'd fallen into. Ferdinand a cowed prisoner and Hubert his jailer.

"I'll admit I enjoyed having you at a stranger's mercy," Hubert manages at last. "What makes you think I won't kill you now that you know?"

"It doesn't matter." Infuriatingly optimistic, effortlessly trusting. "Because you were my friend." 

Shame abruptly courses through Hubert, like poison lacing his veins. He never once thought of Ferdinand as his friend. There was nothing between them that could be constituted as friendly, but then again there were few who had such an arrangement with Ferdinand back at Garreg Mach. They were all orbiting one another, thick with adolescent frets and frustrations. And every moment Hubert had spent in service of Edelgard, in working to achieve his aims, to conceal her true plans, there had been simple annoyances like Ferdinand in the periphery. Interacting with mild nuisances, with juvenile bluster and calling it friendship. 

All his life Hubert had Edelgard's safety to guard, her visions to make a reality. How lonely it must have been to have nothing like that in your life, to be surrounded by others who didn't view you as a friend in return. To grow up in spite of that, to become some holy cannon fodder in a hopeless army, to be imprisoned by someone in a cowardly way to connect with you and then used so terribly. And after all that, for Ferdinand to call that person a friend.

The sensation in his chest twists. "And what am I now?" Your captor, your enemy, your murderer.

"That's up to you." Ferdinand is pensive, resigned in a heap of self-satisfaction with weeks of dried blood and come at his feet. "I suppose I'd rather die knowing it was at your hand than live without you."

Hubert is sick to his stomach with vulnerability. If it's an escape attempt, it's very good.

"You're so — weak," Hubert stumbles, momentarily lost for an argument, "You won't even defend yourself."

Ferdinand's face is ripe with blithe acceptance. "I don't need to do that with you."

"Really?" he asks, settling back into low, comfortable danger. "Even if we destroy your precious teacher?"

Ferdinand's complacent expression shifts, suddenly urgent. "Yes," he says, "Edelgard must help the professor."

"Don't presume to give her orders-"

Ferdinand continues talking as if Hubert hadn't spoken, a bad habit he's carried since adolescence. "- the church is manipulating him-"

"Of course it is. It's manipulated everyone from the beginning." Of course, nothing has changed about Ferdinand. Even like this, even at the end of his usefulness, even strung up and toyed with for weeks, Ferdinand has no sense of self-preservation. He'll take the goodwill he's suddenly earned with Hubert from being a good plaything and spend it all in one failed attempt to plead the case of their fallen guardian. 

"He is the teacher, he should save himself." Hubert feels an angry heat rising up his neck. 

"Hubert." It cuts through him, hearing his name like this. "I know you don't want to fight him."

A multitude of complications well up inside him. "What do you know of my wants?" Hubert mutters.

"I think I know plenty." 

"Really," Hubert replies, unconvinced.

"Yes," Ferdinand says. Hubert had been right to have blindfolded him. His eyes are like staring directly into the sun, bits of light boring in Hubert's hollow insides. "I know that you have feelings for me."

The force of Ferdinand's words is enough to sear Hubert to the bone. He's on top of the prisoner in an instant and Ferdinand, always so gracious, so accommodating, with such good breeding and manners, goes easily. He lifts his chin serenely as Hubert wraps his hands around his meaty throat.

"Yes, feelings," Hubert growls, fingers flexing against the soft tissue that covers his windpipe, fluttering in his grip like a bird. "Don't confuse what's in my heart for yours." Calling it a heart is generous; at best it's just a dead organ throbbing in his chest, beating in time with Ferdinand's rapidly slowing pulse. "Your affection for that professor put you at the wrong end of a knife."

Inexplicably, the mouth just above his closed fists shifts, from a grimace to a smile. Turned up at the edges brilliantly, striking in a way on which Edelgard's expressions had once been. And now, this new deceptive thing that wormed itself into Hubert's life, that found a place as a pet and now something more, his hands closing over Hubert's as Ferdinand takes such an assault with a smile. 

Hubert releases him, falls backward, falls forever. The ground is cool under his hands, the air thin in this small dark place.

"You think you'll scare me, but you won't," Ferdinand says, such sweet assurances even as a lack of airflow gives his voice a raw edge. Hubert can't possibly fathom what would make Ferdinand so kind and forgiving, what would allow him to look the other way from such torment just because it had been Hubert. And then, like the rising sun, like the notion to take Ferdinand, to taste him — the realization that perhaps Hubert hadn't been the only one pining so many years ago.

Hubert opens his eyes sometime later, lying in half wakefulness alongside Ferdinand. His hand absentmindedly threaded into Ferdinand's hair. How had this hair stayed so lovely through his imprisonment? How often had Hubert unknowingly brushed it, tended to him? How much longer could he carry on like this, unchanged even after the truth was revealed?

"I'll speak to Edelgard about the Professor," Ferdinand says as if he could handle this new reality with some misplaced diplomacy. As if Hubert would ever wish to be handled by something like him.

"You'll do no such thing," he says, fingers itch for a silencing spell. Or a throat. "In any case, you'll have no such opportunity to reunite with her from down here."

Ferdinand pauses, momentarily thoughtful before wrapping his arms tighter around Hubert, mouth making only an unconvinced hum.

"Don't presume anything has changed," Hubert orders, somewhat ineffectually.

"All right," he replies, "I suppose having you like this is enough for now."

Affection chips away at his resolve. "You'll stay in the dungeon."

"That's a shame," Ferdinand replies as simple as a smile. He reaches up and tucks a lock of hair behind Hubert's ear. It doesn't fall into place as gracefully as Ferdinand's, the lock of his own hair falls adrift and drapes across his face, obscuring himself from view. Somehow Ferdinand seems content with the Sisyphean task of putting Hubert back into place over and over again.

Ferdinand moves forward, breath warm on the shell of Hubert's ear. "Because I would very much like to fuck you in a bed."

Hubert is dizzy with that suggestion but somehow is still able to speak. "Perhaps," he says, a smooth correction, "but a dog sleeps on the floor."

**Author's Note:**

> so i was wandering through my victorian mansion in a lacey nightgown in the middle of the night and holding a single candle for light, when I got to the deserted east wing and this fic was just sitting there. 
> 
> anyway follow me on twitter @mobchuu


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